An Ohio University researcher said the rapid rise of prediction markets is likely to pull more people into gambling and raise the risk of problem gambling, and that the products should not be left largely unregulated.
In an interview with WOUB Public Media on 8 September, Jennifer Grant Weinandy said the experience of online sports gambling offered a warning. She said that when access increased and betting moved onto phones, the number of people gambling rose, and she expects prediction markets to produce the same pattern.
Weinandy is an assistant professor of psychology at Ohio University and directs the Thoughts and Experiences of Addiction Lab in the psychology department. Her research focuses on how individual and contextual factors shape addiction diagnosis and treatment, especially gambling.
Prediction markets have expanded quickly and let people bet on, in the article’s words, “anything.” Companies promote them as trading platforms that resemble the stock market, but Weinandy said they “certainly looks a lot like gambling” and present similar risks to gambling with a potentially larger audience.
She argued that younger adults are especially vulnerable, saying they struggle more to regulate their behavior and can end up in debt. She also pointed to familiar gambling dynamics, including the lure of “I almost won,” the gambler’s fallacy and chasing losses.
On regulation, Weinandy said the products are hard to police because they are “open ended,” which makes age restrictions and meaningful controls on phones difficult. “This looks like gambling. It feels like gambling. It probably is gambling,” she said, adding that the answer is to regulate prediction markets “at least in some way.”
The broader expansion of online sports gambling has made betting possible anytime and anywhere on phones, and has been linked in the article to more problem gambling.
